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Ceremony Video to Honor 2025 Laureate, Liu Jiakun
November 10, 2025
The Pritzker Architecture Prize releases a special ceremony video honoring Liu Jiakun, the 54th Laureate, now available at pritzkerprize.com. Filmed at Louvre Abu Dhabi, the event celebrates Liu’s enduring contribution to contemporary architecture—rooted in civic purpose, cultural memory and an enduring belief in the resilience of the human spirit.
“Architecture is closely intertwined with the fate of humanity—it will evolve and renew itself, as it has always been doing. As long as humanity does not perish, architecture will not either,” remarks Liu, articulating his vision of architecture that harmonizes history and modernity, individuality and community, utopia and lived reality.
“Every now and then, the Pritzker discovers someone that the general public—even the general architecture population—doesn’t know about much,” notes Hashim Sarkis, Juror. “Occasionally, it identifies a hidden gem and puts [them] in front of the world to see.” Liu’s work demonstrates that “identity is as much about the individual as it is about the collective sense of belonging to a place,” according to the 2025 Jury Citation.
Addressing guests and dignitaries from the luminous dome of the museum, designed by Jean Nouvel, 2008 Laureate, and Ateliers Jean Nouvel, Tom Pritzker, Chairman of The Hyatt Foundation, situates Liu’s achievement within a humanist continuum, “We are living in a time of significant change, not just in science and technology, but in ideas and global relations.” He continues, “the good life, both materially and intellectually, is characterized by balance, by harmony and by avoiding extremes. We are now in a time when that ancient wisdom of balance is sorely needed. It is with this established principle of balance that we celebrate and appreciate this year’s Laureate Liu Jiakun...He is a master of balance, understanding architecture as inspired by community, spirituality, tradition and the pre-existing reality.”
This 47th year of the accolade marks the first ceremony since the passing of Cindy Pritzker, who alongside the late Jay A. Pritzker, co-founded the Prize in 1979. “Her influence will outlive her. This prize is about celebrating the contribution to humanity through the art of architecture. And such contribution tends to happen by challenging conventions,” reflects Alejandro Aravena, Jury Chair and 2016 Laureate. Drawing a parallel to Liu’s West Village project, he emphasized that the typology of this project “has not even a name yet—something in between infrastructure, a park, a vertical public space in which retail and amenities pile up. It’s something never seen before but familiar at the same time… It is a pertinent choice that understands…celebrating achievements for the ordinary citizen in an irreverent manner.”
The 2025 Laureate Lecture and Panel Discussion, On Land: A Model For Community, was held in partnership with the Department of Culture and Tourism—Abu Dhabi at the Cultural Foundation in the days prior to the ceremony.
The ceremony video features full remarks and insight from the Jury, including Barry Bergdoll, Deborah Berke, André Corrêa do Lago, Kazuyo Sejima (2010 Laureate), Anne Lacaton (2021 Laureate) and Manuela Lucá-Dazio, Executive Director. Highlighting Liu’s Luyeyuan Stone Sculpture Museum, Berke observed, “to me, that’s a masterpiece—when a building can be nowhere else than where it is and be about nothing else other than what it is about.”
Past Laureates, including Jean Nouvel, Rafael Aranda, Carme Pigem, and Ramon Vilalta (2017); Jean-Philippe Vassal (2021); David Chipperfield (2023); and Riken Yamamoto (2024) share their perspectives on Liu’s architectural and social ethos. As Yamamoto affirms, “The responsibility [of an architect] is how to make an invisible community visible.”
The 2026 Laureate of the Pritzker Architecture Prize will be announced next March, marking the 48th edition of the world’s most distinguished award in architecture.
Watch the full ceremony video: pritzkerprize.com
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Eunice Kim
Director of Communications
The Pritzker Architecture Prize
[email protected]
